Fundamentally Speaking

Earlier this week, USDA released its first national corn condition report for the 2022 season and using our usual ratings system where we weight the crop based on the percent in each category and assign that category a factor of 2 for very poor, 4 for poor, 6 for fair, 8 for good, and 10 for excellent and then sum the results.

This year's first rating came in week 22 which is usually around the first week of June and this graph shows the week 22 corn ratings for the top 18 producing states and the U.S. for this year, last year and the average, worst and best week 22 ratings for the time period 2000-2022.

We should note that the correlation between the first corn crop ratings of the year and the percent that final yields deviate from trend is a very low 11% so we really can't make much of any definitive judgement about how yields will fare this year as there is simply too much of the growing season left.

Still it is interesting to see which state or states is/are off to a good start and which are not.

The week 22 U.S. rating this year is 760 which is the same as a year ago and slightly above the 2000-2022 average of 753 with the high of 782 seen in 2018 and the low of 694 seen in 2002.

The lowest rated state is Texas whose 604 reading is well down from the year ago rating of 812 which was the best week 22 rating for that state since at least 2000 as this year's rating the lowest since 2011.

Another state not faring so well is Colorado whose 668 rating is the worst since 2000 as both CO and TX are seeing this year's ratings the most below their 2021 figures at this time of year.

On the other hand, Pennsylvania at 808 quite good as is Iowa's at 806 which is their second-best week 22 rating since 2000.

Illinois's 790 rating the highest relative to its average though North Dakota at 736 the most above the year ago figure with the 2021 crop already mired in serious drought even as early as the beginning of June.

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